Labor Rights Respected Nowhere On Earth

If labor rights were a test, the entire world would flunk. Basic labor rights are under sustained assault, but just how badly is quantified in a just released report by the International Trade Union Confederation in which every country scored below 50 percent.

To better summarize these results, the ITUC grouped the world’s countries into five rankings, with a ranking of one signifying the countries with the (relatively) best conditions for working people and a ranking of five signifying those with the most repressive conditions. Most of those countries with a ranking of one were in the European Union, but this group also included Togo and Uruguay. Those with a ranking of five include some of the world’s most repressive countries, including China and Saudi Arabia, but also Greece, Turkey and South Korea. The United States has a ranking of four. So much for the home of the free.

The ITUC describes itself as “a confederation of national trade union centres” that includes 325 affiliated organizations in 161 countries and territories. Its Global Rights Index summarizes data on the abuse of trade union rights around the world. The report’s introduction states:

“The increase in precarious employment relationships has further deepened the vulnerability of workers to discrimination at the workplace. Governments in the vast majority of countries have been convinced to alter their labour legislation to encourage various forms of precarious work. In virtually all countries, temporary work, agency work, subcontracting and other types of informal work are expanding rapidly. Given their unstable employment situation and the high risk of dismissal, precarious workers are discouraged from joining unions and being covered by collective bargaining. This means that workers in precarious forms of employment do not have the necessary support to improve their work situation.”

The report collects information on each country for 97 indicators derived from International Labour Organization standards. These indicators relate to one of five categories: Fundamental civil liberties; the right to establish or join unions; trade union activities; the right to collective bargaining; and the right to strike. It assigns a simple yes or no to each of the 97 questions rather than a more gradated system to eliminate any potential bias and because each is a “universally binding obligation” that all countries should respect.

Therefore, 97 is the highest possible score for any country. The highest score attained, however, was 43. The lowest was zero. Therefore, the study grouped the world’s countries into the five rankings, with each ranking containing roughly one-fifth of the total. The ITUC’s map of workers’ rights is below, with the brightest yellow those countries with a ranking of one (those with the most respect for rights) and the deepest orange and red those with a ranking of five (those with the least respect for rights).

Countries with a ranking of four, such as the United States, Honduras, Indonesia and Kuwait, “have reported systematic violations. The government and/or companies are engaged in serious efforts to crush the collective voice of workers putting fundamental rights under continuous threat.” Only somewhat better are those with a ranking of three, such as Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, where “Government and/or companies are regularly interfering in collective labour rights or are failing to fully guarantee important aspects of these rights. There are deficiencies in laws and/or certain practices which make frequent violations possible.”

Those conditions are reflected in the dwindling number of strikes. During the 1970s, an average of During the 1970s, an average of 289 work stoppages involving 1,00 or more workers took place annually in the United States. In 2009, there were no more than five. Lockouts, in which management bars employees from working, have become more common, reaching record levels this decade.

That is a worldwide phenomenon, of course, in no way limited to any one country, including the one imposes its will on the rest of the world through a misguided ideology of “exceptionalism.” The ITUC notes in its report:

“[W]orkers are struggling everywhere for their right to collective representation and decent work deficits exist in varying degrees in most countries. Abuses of rights are getting worse not better and too many countries take no responsibility for protecting workers rights in a national context or through corporate supply chains. Based on reports from affiliates, workers in at least 53 countries have either been dismissed or suspended from their jobs for attempting to negotiate better working conditions. In the vast majority of these cases the national legislation offered either no protection or did not provide dissuasive sanctions in order to hold abusive employers accountable. Indeed, employers and governments are complicit in silencing workers’ voices against exploitation.”

A continuing race to the bottom is all that is on offer. Capitalists are well organized, across borders. Working people had better do the same.